Damage
by Kate McCaye
Summary: Did anyone else really think Jack's little shrug and "I'm back," at the end of "Shades of Grey" was enough of an apology? I didn't, and I don't think Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c would either.
1. Stuff you left behind

Spoiler Alert: Shades of Grey, big time

A/N: So... this is what happens when you're in a bad mood already and you watch "Shades of Grey." Since it's impossible to physically assault a fictitious character, I had to settle for this...

Don't worry, I'm usually a fan of happy endings.

Seriously. If you're cranky, don't watch that episode. Watch "Window of Opportunity" instead. You'll feel a lot better.

Damage

Ch 1: Stuff you left behind

Sam Carter shoved her rolling chair away from her work station at her lab, too frustrated and sore to continue trying to type up her report. Every muscle in her body was aching, probably because she hadn't slept for more than thirty consecutive minutes in... she didn't know how long.

She looked around her lab for a new distraction for her mind and found nothing. She glanced at the door for the tenth time in as many minutes, hoping Daniel or Teal'c, or both, would come in to visit. Her eyes settled on an open box on the stool by her door. She frowned at it. Two weeks ago, Sergeant Harriman had crept into her office, looking terrified, and explained that its contents were things Colonel O'Neill had left behind in his locker. He had left as soon as possible, mumbling an apology on his way out.

She had ignored the box until Daniel and Teal'c had joined her for yet another session of silently nursing their wounds together, and they had gone through its few contents together: a towel, a black tee-shirt, a near-empty can of shaving cream, and a copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

SG-1 had always been close, but after Colonel O'Neill had been forced into retirement for stealing alien technology, the three remaining members had bonded even more. It was strange to think about, she realized now, but they had hardly spoken at all in the entire time he had been away from them. Yet they had grown infinitely closer. He had betrayed them all, disillusioned them all, and hurt them all with some pretty harsh words as well. That was all they knew, so nobody felt the need to try to make sense of any of it. They just spent long periods of time sitting near each other, occasionally exchanging sad, significant looks.

Of course, the entire thing had been a set-up. None of it had been real, except the sense of loss they had all felt for weeks. Even now, knowing he had been acting under orders, Carter still couldn't help but feel a little bit betrayed, and she knew Daniel and Teal'c felt it too. They had always, always done everything as a team. It was an unspoken rule they had, the team came before everything, even the rest of the SGC. Even official orders. The fact that he hadn't told them what he was up to... it hurt a lot more than Carter cared to admit.

Which only made her angry with herself. Daniel was rubbing off on her too much. She was upset because her CO had been following orders. The unbelievably cruel irony of that made her want to spend yet another hour wailing on a punching bag in the gym.

As she went over all of this for the thousandth time, a familiar and (for the moment at least) unwelcome voice called, "Carter?"

Her CO was peeking into her lab. "Okay to come in?"

Was he asking if it was safe or if he was welcome? She sighed and nodded. "Yes, sir."

He came into the room completely but didn't take a seat. She was glad, it meant he wasn't planning on staying. She hated the way the feeling of relief that he was back and hadn't gone all crazy on them always immediately started fighting with residual anger and hurt feelings every time she saw him. It was confusing, irritating, and unprofessional.

"Uh, I just wanted to let you know, I made my final report to Hammond. About the undercover mission. And, ah... he felt that due to the added... emotional strain on everybody, we all deserve two weeks off."

"Great," she said automatically, not caring that no matter how he had been acting, his eyes were still trying to apologize. She was just so tired of the whole thing... she really wished she could just erase the entire incident from her mind.

"So... I think Teal'c wants to go visit his kid but I thought maybe you and Daniel might want to go fishing," he suggested cautiously.

"Did you talk to them?"

"No. I just left Hammond's office."

"I'll talk to them about it and we'll get back to you, sir. Is that all?" she asked in a cold voice, deliberately excluding him from the decision-making process. She felt a bit of satisfaction as she saw him mask the hurt in his eyes. Then she felt sick with herself for doing it.

"Yes, I guess that's all, Major," he said just as formally as she had, turning to go. She saw him notice the open box. He paused, and looked at it with his back to her for several moments.

"Take it if you want," she finally said. "It's just stuff you left behind."

He sighed and actually leaned his head on the door frame for a few moments before leaving without saying a word.


	2. Mockingbirds

Ch 2: Mockingbirds

She wasn't surprised when Daniel and Teal'c visited her shortly after her CO left. "Hey, guys," she said with a small smile, feeling slightly guilty as they found her holding the book he had left in his locker.

"Hey, Sam," Daniel replied, taking his usual seat.

Teal'c stood next to him, ramrod straight as always, and inclined his head to her. "Guess you heard about our two weeks," she said.

"Indeed."

"Yeah."

"The Colonel wants us to go fishing."

"I am planning to visit my son. You are both most welcome to accompany me," Teal'c offered.

"Thanks, Teal'c, but I want you to have a good time with R'yac. Father son bonding and all that," Carter said with a genuine smile, which he returned in his own unique way.

"Daniel Jackson?" he asked, turning to the smaller man next to him.

"Thanks, Teal'c, but I'm going to stay here with Sam. Make sure Jack doesn't try to bully her into fishing."

"And I'll do the same for you," Carter replied.

Daniel nodded at her and turned back to Teal'c. "Tell R'yac we said hi though."

"I will," he promised, turning to go.

"Wait, you're going right now?" Carter asked, surprised.

"General Hammond has given me permission to leave as soon as I wish."

"Okay, just..." she crossed her lab to him and hesitated slightly. Teal'c was even less physically demonstrative than she was, which was saying something. She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek quickly, smiling at him sincerely. "We'll miss you. Be careful."

"Likewise," he said, smiling and bowing to them both before leaving the two scientists alone.

"He didn't want his stuff back?" Daniel asked, nodding at the book in Sam's hands.

She looked down at it and said, "Guess not. I told him he could take it and he just left it there."

"That's... odd. He told me once that was his favorite book," he said with a quick smile he was even quicker to cover up.

"Really?" Sam asked curiously in spite of herself. She had always been a bit jealous of Daniel's relationship to her CO. They seemed to know so much more about each other, although they also argued constantly and saw things from completely opposite perspectives. Daniel, of course, had the luxury of being able to say anything he liked to Jack without worrying about being brought up on insubordination charges.

"Yeah. I was surprised, at first, but it's one of my favorites too, and I guess I can see it now. The whole Atticus thing..."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, suddenly understanding how the two very different men could both relate to the same parts of the wonderful book.

"Anyway, we sort of... bonded over it, I guess you'd say. Once."

"When?"

"Um... it was when he was recuperating from Antarctica. I came to visit him and he was reading it. As you can tell, his copy's nearly worn out."

Sam looked at the book in her hands. It looked like some of her favorites from childhood, that had survived being carried around in pockets, dropped, bent, thumbed through, dropped in the tub, and rolled over onto after she'd fallen asleep reading them in the middle of the night.

She started thumbing through it absently, only half paying attention to Daniel, who started talking just for the sake of talking, throwing out idle suggestions of how they could spend their vacation time. Her brow creased as she thumbed through the book. "Daniel, do you know if this has always had things underlined in it?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked.

"I mean, would you be able to tell if the Colonel had underlined these things before... or maybe after, as a... clue... I'm probably just seeing connections because I want to," she said dismissively, closing the book quickly.

"What's he got underlined?" Daniel asked.

Sam knew from the tone in his voice that he was just humoring her, he didn't really expect her to be onto anything. She didn't care. "There's a lot of them. Some are the funnier bits. Some aren't. Here's one: 'Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults.'" She thumbed through the book, knowing she had seen several more underlined phrases. "The quote at the beginning, about having nothing to fear but fear itself," she added.

"And the one everyone remembers from that book?" Daniel asked gently. "'You never really understand a person until you see things from their point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it?'"

"Yes... okay, I know it's kind of cliché, Daniel, but... what if he was trying to tell us something? What if he left us clues to what he was up to the only way he could without putting us all in danger?"

"Sam, I really, really wish that were true, as much as you do," Daniel said sadly, putting his arm around her and squeezing her shoulder. "But I think you're seeing what you want to see."

She turned to him, her eyes huge, and asked, "Would you check with me? Just in case? Please?"

"Of course. What do you want me to do?"

"The last part of the book. They're talking about 'The Gray Ghost...' the part about all you need to do is stand on the porch. Let's just go see if there's anything there. If we don't find anything, I'll let it go."

"You want us to go to Jack's house and snoop around?" Daniel asked, raising both eyebrows.

"He's going fishing," Sam reminded him pointedly.

Daniel sighed and said, "All right. I'm in."


	3. Disclosure

Ch 3: Disclosure

They had gone through the familiar tradition of refusing to go fishing with him, but it had hurt all three of them this time, and it never had before. Sam knew Jack never usually expected them to accept his invitations, especially her. It was just a joke. Except this time, he had actually made the effort to try to heal the rift between them, and they had just as intentionally refused to accept his olive branch. It wasn't that they were being any more stubborn than usual, or that they liked the current state of things, but they didn't want to do it on his terms this time.

Still, although she was trying not to get too excited about her current idea, Sam had to admit she had felt extremely guilty following Daniel's cold brush-off when they had told him they weren't going fishing with him. Daniel, whom Sam knew had been hurt more than any of them, although he had refused to say exactly what Jack had said to him when he'd gone to his house alone, had rubbed salt in the wound by not only turning Jack down, but insinuating that he and Sam were going on a scientist-only exclusive-type trip.

When he'd said that, Jack had looked at her with so much sadness in his eyes that she had almost blurted out an apology. She hadn't, but she had met his gaze openly, sure there was just as much sadness reflected in hers, if not more, than there was in his. Daniel had tugged on her arm gently, she had given Jack one more look, and followed Daniel out of the room.

Now SG-1's doctors were standing on their leader's front porch in broad daylight on a late Saturday morning, looking around as if expecting to find a neon sign spelling out "CLUE!" Sam quickly ran her hand over the door frame and looked under the welcome mat. Nothing. She looked around in the landscaping for rocks that could be concealing keys and found nothing.

Frustrated at finding nothing and frustrated with herself for expecting to find something, she turned to Daniel and said, "Let's go," in a businesslike tone. "Daniel?" she prompted, touching his arm lightly. He was facing the street, looking around slowly.

Sam watched as his eyes locked onto something and she followed their gaze. The mailbox. Of course! The black metal, old fashioned, skinny mailbox attached to the porch railing. Its contents were typical, but something nagged at the back of her mind. Pulling a flashlight out of her pocket, she climbed up on the rail next to it to peer straight down into the narrow slit.

"There's a key down here," she said, flashing Daniel a smile. She passed him the flashlight and tried to get it out, but her arm wouldn't go down far enough.

"Can't you just pick the lock to his front door," Daniel said with an exasperated sigh as he watched her struggling.

"I guess," she said with a frown. "But it's right there... I can touch it with the tips of my fingers, I just can't grab it. All right, I'll pick the lock," she said, hopping off the railing and pulling out her handy-dandy lock-pick kit.

"Let's hope we don't set off some kind of alarm," she muttered as she felt the lock give and turned the knob cautiously.

"Way to go, Sam," Daniel replied as they instantly heard the warning of an alarm system. They hurried over to the keypad to shut it off.

"Two minutes," Sam said, biting her lip. Yeah, it would go over really well with the Colonel if he was called away from fishing because she and Daniel got arrested for busting into his house. General Hammond would probably be a bit irked as well.

"Okay, okay, he must have left the code around here somewhere," Daniel said reasonably, looking around. He zeroed in on a stack of CDs on his front hall. The one on the top of the piles was a Switchfoot single.

He held it up. "Since when is Jack a Switchfoot fan?" Daniel asked, indicating the title.

"Under the Floor," Sam read aloud, trying to shut out the irritating beeping of the alarm.

They both started tapping at floorboards, trying to find a hollow one. "Got it," Carter said, pulling out her pocketknife and prying the loose board up.

She pulled a folded piece of paper out of the small space underneath and hurried back to the keypad with it, quickly entering the correct code in time to prevent the alarm going off and the police being called.

"Why didn't he just send us an e-mail or something?" Daniel practically whined.

Sam gave him a look. "He was obviously being very closely watched, Daniel. Come on. There's got to be something else here."

They inspected his living room and found nothing out of place, as far as either of them could remember or tell. The curtains were all drawn except for one, but it was such a bright day outside that the room was flooded with natural light anyway. They moved to the kitchen and Sam's eyes were immediately drawn to the refrigerator. There was a grocery list stuck to it.

And she had a pretty good hunch Jack O'Neill wasn't really the type to make such a long grocery list, especially since it was full of pretty mundane items. The last item on the list was the only unusual thing. "Apple turnovers," Daniel read over her shoulder.

Sam automatically turned the list over as he read that, shrugging in response to his curious look. "He's written this on the back of a page from a book," she realized.

"An old book. D.H. Lawrence?" Daniel said, looking at the poem printed on the back of the list skeptically. "_Jack?"_ Shaking his head, Daniel read the title out loud unnecessarily: "At the Window."

He hurried back to the living room automatically. Sam had been skimming the rest of the poem, having thesudden feeling that the title wasn't the only reason Jack had chosen it.

"Sam, come on," Daniel said excitedly, getting into the thrill of discovery now. Sam smiled at him and pocketed the poem quickly, hurrying after him.

They looked out the only open window, which faced Jack's backyard. Daniel played with the cords for the blinds while they looked out the window. Another piece of paper fluttered down between them, having been stuck up in the blinds. Carter bent down and picked it up. "Oh God," she said quietly, smiling slowly at the photo.

She remembered the day it was taken. Janet joined them in the park to pick up her new daughter, and had been most unhappy to learn that her new daughter also now came with a new dog. Still, she had taken it all in stride and had been taking pictures of all of them when a nice elderly couple taking a walk had stopped and offered to take a big group picture.

Janet, Jack, and Sam were sitting on the park bench, slightly crowded. Jack was in the middle, his arm stretched out over the back of the bench behind Sam. Cassie was in Janet's lap, nearly as big as her already. Teal'c and Daniel were leaning over the back of the bench, looking like they were hugging the whole group. Carter was holding the puppy in an upright sitting position in her lap, like he was a person. Jack was patting the dog, as was Daniel, leaning heavily into them both. The best part about the picture was that the puppy had 'ruined' it by stretching up and licking Daniel's glasses right as it was being taken, so that everyone was laughing hysterically at the dog and Daniel rather than smiling awkwardly and looking posed. It was a very natural looking picture, and Sam couldn't look at it without feeling happy.

She turned it over, but there was nothing on the back of it. She handed it to Daniel, staring out the window, her eyes slightly glazed.

"The tree," she said finally, realizing what she had been looking at for minutes. The biggest tree in his yard, and the tree that looked like the window they were staring out of had been built to frame it. She headed outside, Daniel following her. They walked over to the tree and looked around on the ground. Nothing.

"Any knot holes, Scout?" Daniel asked with a grin.

"Nope," she replied, smiling back at him. "Give me a boost," she instructed, eyeing the rough bark and branches just out of her reach.

"Um, Sam, do you really think he put something up in the tree?" Daniel asked doubtfully.

"Yes, I do," she said matter-of-factly. "Give me a boost or I'll go get the ladder."

"Fine," Daniel said, kneeling down and cupping his hands together.

He boosted her up and she scrambled up to the lowest and thickest branch. "Like riding a bike," she called back down as she wrapped her legs around it for security and brushed loose bark off her hands.

"Your dad told me once about the long process of you learning to ride a bike. As I recall, it went something like scraped knees, bruises, crashing into a patch of poison ivy, and a dislocated shoulder!" Daniel called up.

She grinned down at him before setting off for a higher branch. "Yeah, but that was only because I was four and determined to ride my big brother's bike. My legs were too short. They're longer now. Don't worry, Daniel."

He sighed and started really, really hoping she didn't fall.

"I see something!" she finally called. "It's... an airplane."

"How high ARE you?" he called.

"Very funny," she replied sarcastically. "It's one of those balsa wood ones, like little kids make... he must have known it would look like some neighbor accidentally crashed it or something."

"Can you get it?"

"Yeah... I've got it!"

"Okay, please come back down now. You know I don't like heights!"

"That's why you're on the ground, Daniel," she reminded him.

"Well... you're making me nervous, please just get back down here."

"All right..."

She slid roughly down the last several feet of the trunk. Daniel caught her awkwardly and brushed off her shoulders. She pulled the plane out of her back pocket and turned it upside down, grinning at him so happily Daniel really didn't need to read what was written on the underneath side of the plane's wings. He did it anyway. "Undercover. Sorry." He snorted. "Eloquent. All that snooping around for that. We already knew that, Sam."

"Yeah, but apparently I overestimated you guys," a familiar voice called, startling them both. "I thought you would have found that ages ago."


	4. Stubborn

Ch 4: Stubborn

Sam and Daniel froze, looking at each other like kids caught jumping on the bed. They turned around slowly. Jack O'Neill was standing halfway between the tree and his house, hands in pockets, smug smile firmly in place.

"So," he continued, obviously enjoying himself way too much. "I know I didn't overestimate your intelligence, so I must have underestimated your stubbornness. Whatcha doin, guys?"

"We were just..." Sam started.

"We thought you were fishing," Daniel finally blurted out.

"Looks like you thought wrong, Danny boy."

"About a lot of things, apparently," Sam said, holding up the airplane as evidence.

"Yeah, look... my house was being monitored, I wasn't sure when it was all going to go down... I tried to convince Hammond you guys could be let in the loop, but his hands were kind of tied..."

"You don't have to explain anything to us, sir," Sam said dutifully.

Daniel nudged her pointedly.

"What?" she asked innocently.

"You're right, Carter," Jack said as Sam and Daniel started walking towards him. "I don't have to. But I wanted to. So I tried. I thought you guys would figure it out a couple of days after I was gone."

"Well, to be fair, you didn't exactly give off that 'something's up' vibe," Daniel said defensively.

"I didn't? Damn, I'm better than I thought," he said, grinning again. Daniel rolled his eyes. "Come on, you guys didn't suspect something when I told Hammond I wanted to go back to Edora, for cryin' out loud?"

The man was obviously clueless, that was perfectly obvious to Sam. He still had no idea what that whole experience had done to her, or how much it _had _bothered her when she thought he was going back there forever. Then again, the fact that he was obviously so dismissive about it was something in and of itself, she supposed.

"Carter? What's wrong?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing. Sorry. Just thinking."

"For a change," he said with an affectionate smile. "So, you guys didn't find the book until..."

"Well, we found it but we never bothered to look at it until yesterday," Daniel explained.

"Huh. So all my careful and clever planning, looking up all that stuff on the Internet, and you guys didn't even get the first clue until I'd already finished the whole op. Great. Well, are you done being mad now, can we all go back in the house and have a beer?"

"Yes," they both said together.

He nodded and did his 'come with' gesture, heading inside. They followed him. He grabbed three beers and distributed them in the living room. Everyone sat down. Nobody said anything for a while, but it wasn't the uncomfortable silence that had been settling between everyone lately. It was just silence. Contemplative for Sam, although apparently not so for Jack and Daniel.

"Chess?" Jack offered Daniel.

"Sure," he said, sitting down opposite the chess board.

Sam watched them begin playing, their relationship obviously completely back to normal already. Men. Watching them play chess from across the room wasn't very interesting. She pulled the poem out from her back pocket, set her beer on the table next to her chair, and curled her legs up underneath her, settling in to read it.

She wasn't really sure what made her so certain, but for some reason she knew the poem had meaning to Jack as well; he hadn't been using it for the title alone. As she read it more carefully, she knew her hunch had been correct. The feeling of being trapped, helpless, watching events unfold from afar... one of the last lines even spoke of "dark-filled eyes."

She took a deep breath. Even after they had learned the truth, she had still been too hurt by everything that had happened to stop and think about how the entire situation had been for Jack himself. She imagined how she'd feel if she had been forced to say the things he had said to them. She didn't think she would have been able to do it.

"Jack? Your move."

Daniel's voice made Sam glance up from the piece of paper in her hands for the first time in ages. Her eyes widened in surprise at the way her CO was looking at her. She had no idea how long he'd been watching her read the poem, but the nervous, concerned, slightly worried look he was giving her from across the room told her more than if he had been standing on the coffee table yelling out apologies.

Her own eyes and face must have done an okay job at conveying some of the sympathy she was feeling for him, because he smiled slowly in relief. She returned the smile and mouthed, "Your move."

Jack's eyes widened in shock and something she'd really, really prefer not to try to analyze flashed across his face. She gestured at the chessboard quickly, knowing she was blushing. He looked confused for a split second, then realized what she was talking about and turned his attention back to the game a bit too enthusiastically, mumbling an apology to Daniel.

Okay, so at least the random awkwardness that sometimes sprung up between them had been unaffected by his undercover stint, Sam thought. Jack glanced over at her discreetly, but since she was still looking at him, he didn't get away with it. They both looked away quickly. Jack made a move on the chessboard and Sam renewed her interest in her beer, tucking the poem back into her pocket.

"Jack, what, are you _trying _to lose?" Daniel asked with a laugh, taking Jack's queen.

"Oops."

"You didn't see that?" Daniel asked, surprised.

"No. Drink your beer, Daniel."

Sam smiled down at her hands, unable to help herself. They were all going to be okay.

"So, now that you guys aren't mad at me anymore, want to go fishing?" Jack tried enthusiastically.

---

A/N: Should I bother to go ahead with the team bonding stuff, or just leave it here? Decisions, decisions.


End file.
